Steck wins Democratic primary in 110th

Albany County Legislator Phil Steck won the Democratic line in the 110th Assembly District primary.

Steck kept a lead all night in Colonie and stayed close behind Niskayuna Supervisor Joe Landry in the Schenectady County portion of the district.

Unofficial results show Steck with 2,100 votes, compared to 1,589 for Kevin Frazier, 1,137 for Landry and 624 for another Albany County Legislator, Tim Nichols.

Steck will fill the seat held by retiring Assembly Bob Reilly, though the district number is changing from the 109th and the boundaries are changing somewhat from the area Reilly represented. Clifton Park and Halfmoon will be out of the district; Niskayuna and part of Schenectady will be in it.

Steck said he is gratified by the result and looks forward to facing Republican Jennifer Whalen, who lost a bid to Reilly two years ago. Whalen won the Independence Party line.

“This is a victory for an idea, which is grass roots politics,” Steck said. “It’s very difficult to parachute in with endorsements when you’ve never worked it at the grass roots.”

The comment was a clear reference to Frazier, who racked up endorsements from his former boss, Assembly Majority Leader Ron Canestrari, as well as Reilly, Schenectady City Council President Denise Brucker and Menands Mayor Meg Grenier.

Steck said he concentrated on making sure he worked hard in Schenectady County. Niskayuna Supervisor Joe Landry initially appeared poised to take advantage of the three-way split among the three Colonie-based Democrats by dominating the Schenectady voting, but Steck was only 121 votes behind him.

Steck said he was not surprised Jennifer Whalen appeared poised to win the Independence Party line.

“You can’t have three Democrats and one Republican competing against each other,” he said. “She only really had to get a quarter of the vote to win. We’re looking forward to the general election. I think it’s going to be an interesting race. It’ll be fun to debate the issues with Jennifer.”

I still will not vote for Phil Stuck, I mean Steck. He is a pompous jerk who only cares about women when they are giving him money. I guess, Bob, it is your fault that Jennifer Whalen will win the seat. Great Job. The rich get richer and the rest of us get screwed!

Bad karma when the former Assemblyman sandbags a good guy like Nichols in favor of the frankenstein boy creation of incumbent Assemblymembers and lobbyists. Landry gets the same for going negative at the end. And all that bad karma turned out to help the bad man Steck, go figure. Can he beat the bad girl Whalen? Where are all the good people?

Down goes Frazier, down goes Frazier!! Hey, if Tim Nichols read the writing on the wall he would have a job by now and Steck would have won by a landslide. When is the press conference for Reilly endorsing Whalen? It will be held at Schuyler Meadows, you know that.

I’m a registered Democrat, voted against Steck and will vote against him again in the general election. He is an unprincipled creep who takes on legal cases without integrity. This ‘civil rights /employment’ lawyer took on, as my adversary, my child custody case for political reasons, so I can attest to the fact that he is totally without principles, willing to espouse any lies, waste county resources on unfounded accusations, and twist reality for the sake of whomever is willing to pay his bills. Thank God his efforts were rebuked by Albany County Family Court and my child was not exposed to his objectives.
I can’t believe he has wormed his way to winning this primary… great loss for the people of this state.

Wow. Just wow. It’s sad as a democrat to say that I actually want to come out with stron support for Whalen rather back the democratic candidate. Frazier should have won this, and we’ve got Tim Nichols to thank for sticking us with Steck. It’s hilarious that people are still defending Nichols, let’s be honest here the guy had no chance the only thing he did was rob 600 votes from Kevin with his pathetic cry for sympathy.
I am going to have to start the user “commonsense” motto and say go Whalen!!

Phil Steck was exactly right when he said this is a victory for grass roots politics. Call him a good old boy all you want, I’ve seen first-hand the hard work Phil Steck does in actually meeting the voters and talking about the issues that matter to them. The other candidates thought they could win at the mailbox or on the airwaves. But the people said they’d rather have a nominee they’ve met.

Now it’s on to the general election, and one of the main reasons I supported Phil in the primary is his track record of campaigning as hard as he does in order to eat Republicans for breakfast. If he could turn the Town of Colonie around to Democratic control a few years ago, he can certainly outrun the Republican who lose last time when the district should have favored her. The district now includes the more Democratic leaning Town of Niskayuna and a portion of the heavily Democratic City of Schenectady. If Phil and his campaign keep up the good work (and believe me, we will!) he’ll win the general election by as comfortable a margin as he won the primary and will go on to be an excellent, progressive Assemblyman for the district.

I love to read blogs about how personal you Dems are with your fellow Dems. Phil Steck provided his typical pompous “I am better than everyone” response taking a dig at Kevin Frazier in victory. You call that class? You call that leadership? I hope our district does something historic and puts a competent female in Jennifer Whalen into the role. I also do not appreciate reading comments about where someone socializes and how that is relevant to the issues we are trying to solve. Does it matter whether someone joins a country club or a bowling league? Who cares. Get real and grow up. One thing that was blatantly obvious was the fact you Dems look so non-aligned that you will go down big time in November. Reilly barely won 2 years ago and Whalen is for real. I am not a Republican, but truly I wouldn’t vote for Steck to represent our district on my worst day. While I respect and have witnessed how hard he campaigns, and how he enjoys serving in public office, his arrogance is his biggest liability and I don’t relate to anyone who trashes their own to get ahead. I going on history and to support our first Assemblywoman Jennifer Whalen. I have been stuck with Steck as my County Legislator for too long and he’s done nothing yet takes credit for everything he has been part of vs. leading. Big difference. We need a leader who has passion for their district and Whalen is the right choice here. Thrilled my fellow Independents sent quite a message, only to have Phil Steck belittle our party after courting us for so long while running for the Legislature, a failed bid for Congress and soon a failed bid for Assembly.

After Steck’s insulting comments regarding Legislative Employees, I think the Speaker and DACC should stay out of the race and let Whalen have it. Yes we staffers have no grass roots experience and just get given seats. Way to be classy in your victory.

To Stuck with Steck- The real person you should blame is Bob, Ron, And Kevin. Kevin has never done anything for the party (except work against them to get Republicans elected) for his community or for the school district. Tim has served in his community with dignity and has helped many people. Bob is an elitist snob who wanted to control who got “his seat” . This is still America where anyone who cares about local government should be able to take part in the process. That is something Kevin will never understand as all he could do is take money from lobbying groups ( outside this district) and squander away that money with lies. Kevin would not have won those 600 votes as those people would have just stayed home. As someone who has voted in ever single election (including school board-which by the way I am not sure Kevin has) I honestly don’t know if I will bother to vote for anyone anymore as money has some polluted our political system, it is beyond diseased. While I don’t think I share anything in common with a rich lawyer from Loudonville, I hope she wins, because the choices are truly sad.

Some people call it the arrogance of a smart ass. I call it confidence of a fighter. I want a fighter in the Assembly, one with the confidence to fight for the people against the dysfunction the Assembly is racked with.

Some people thought his dig at Kevin Frazier wasn’t classy. I say, to the victor belongs the spoils. I’d rather see a candidate thank the voters at the doors than the local elected officials who snubbed him for somebody else.

I’m not sure why there is this love-hate atmosphere around Phil Steck, but it’s one of the reasons I like him. I believe it was Winston Churchill who said if you haven’t made some enemies in your political career then you’ve never stood up for anything. Well, Phil Steck doesn’t just go around trying to make friends with everybody he meets in politics. He tells you what he thinks, he fights for what he believes, and that’s the kind of representative I want in that good old boys club called the Assembly.

And on the fact that Whalen nearly won two years ago, that is very old news now that the 110th has been re-districted. Democrats have a registration advantage now and despite all these “non-aligned” comments, Democrats WILL come together to support our nominee as we always do. And Phil Steck is not one to just slouch around and let a registration advantage do the work for him, just like he proved in the primary he won’t let endorsements do the heavy lifting. He does that himself, and I expect he’ll be running an even stronger grass roots campaign to compete in the general election precisely because Whalen did so well last time. You cannot out-campaign Phil Steck.

To real democrat- just because Kevin was endorsed by bob doesn’t mean that he wasn’t working hard and going door to door. Bob was a former school teacher who gave up his assembly salary for charity, I wouldn’t say he’s an elitist. Bob also said publicly he would support any democrat who won aside from Phil Steck, so I don’t think he was trying to control anything

1st lesson of politics… sometimes the best candidates don’t win. In the end, Mud-Slingin’ Steck just had the name recognition from his career as a politician. Democrats won’t get behind this guy, he’s just got ZERO class.

The real lesson to take away from the 110th democratic primary… don’t sit on your hands and expect others to do the work for you. All the phone calls from Bob and Ron, all the lawn signs littering the roads, all cash from lobbyists and then paying Robert K. Sanders to do your work in Schenectady county do not guarantee a victory. Steck out worked the field, used contrast..,not mud slinging, to differentiate himself from his opponents and walked away with a hard earned win. Probably outspent 2-1 by his closest foe, but not outworked. Phil’s in it to win it!!